Yasashiikuma Blog

So, our reunion has now taken on a life of its own. The year following our acceleration program with Mrs. Telfer, the majority of us were kept together for another year, in an enriched grade 6 program with Mrs. Macdonald.

Now we have invited the students who joined us for grade 6 as well as our teacher - Mrs. Macdonald who is now Mrs. Butters.

So here’s a game for you. Find me and the guy that I affectionately call my brother since he’s been one of my best friends for 43 years. For a hint, here is us a couple of years ago.

What do you get when you put a class of 33 exceptionally bright children together, with a teacher who is tasked with getting them through 3 grades in 2 years?

Class of 64-65
Back Row - Carey Green, Alden Dychtenberg, Jack Newton, Hanna Gavendo, Paula Turk, Richard Borchiver, Tom Rebane, Grant Gold
Second from Rear - Lisa Ozak, Randy Charendoff, Karen Small, Maxine Gilman, Ronnie Savlov, Brian Erenworth, Billy Clarke, Lorne Freedman
Second from Front - Michael Rotenberg, Shelley Schlifer, Sheryl Lipton, Ronnie Dale, Eric Gurofsky, Laura Shapiro, Fern Kirsch, Barby Wolfish, Joanne Orzy
Front: Ellen Nissenbaum, Lynn Grader, Michelle Shanker, Harriett Heller, Linda Risman, Anne Burke, Karen Shenfeld, Brenda Steiner

Class of 65-66
Back Row - Michael Rotenberg, Cindy Joseph, Maxine Gilman, Alden Dychtenberg, Richard Borchiver, Paula Turk, Hanna Gavendo, Jack Newton, Billy Clarke, Fern Kirsch
Second from Rear - Sheryl Lipton, Neil Stein, Lorne Freedman, Tom Rebane, Grant Gold, Ron Dale, Ron Savlov, Frances Tozman, Mrs. Telfer
Second from Front - Barby Wolfish, Karen Small, Joanne Orzy, Lisa Osak, Laura Shapiro, Eric Gurofsky, Paul Truster
Front - Shelley Schlifer, Brenda Steiner, Karen Shenfeld, Harriet Heller, Michelle Shanker, Anne Burke, Ellen Nissenbaum, Linda Risman

First you end up with a bunch of students who are most likely more bonded than normal because most of their class was kept intact with a few exceptions.

Second you get a class full of lawyers, accountants, doctors, pharmacists, surgeons, dentists, movie producers, and other professionals far beyond the normal distribution in the general population.

In 1985, three of us, Paul Truster, Lynn Grader (now Mercer) and myself, attended our high school reunion together at William Lyon Mackenzie C.I. in Downsview. It was a disappointing evening and we all agreed that the teacher who had made the greatest impact on our lives was Mrs. Telfer.

Paul asked, “I wonder what ever happened to her”

So on the Monday I contacted the North York Board of Education (or as we wrote on our notebooks BORED of Education). I asked if they could tell me where I could find Mrs. Telfer.

The receptionist said “Well, IF she’s still alive, she retired to Clakson in the 1970’s”.

Next step was to call my friend Bill Long in Mississauga and say “Give me all the Telfer’s in your phone book”.

The first two calls, no one answered. The third call a woman answered the phone.

I said “I’m trying to locate a Mrs. Telfer who taught at Wilmington Avenue Public School in the mid-60’s”.

“Why?”, she said.

“Well a group of us were at our high school reunion and we started talking about her and wondering how she is.”

“Who is this?”, she asked.

“Well, my name is Shelley Camm, but back then it was Shelley Schlifer”.

“OH MY GOD, Shelley!!”, and a two hour telephone conversation ensued. I called Lynn and Paul to tell them I had found her, and the idea of reuniting the class took place.

Not in any particular order, and with names I can remember, here are photos, courtesy of Frances Tozman (now Kraft), of that reunion.

It was an amazing evening, catching up with everyone. Mrs. Telfer recognized everyone as they walked through the door, which was better than I could do! She also led us through the songs that we sang in choir competition. (does anyone remember if we won?!?)

Mrs. Telfer, Lynn Grader & Paul Truster

Standing at the back - Paul Truster, Harriet Heller, Ron Savlov
Kneeling in the striped blouse - Lisa Osak
On the chair - Sheryl Lipton
Sitting on the floor - Hanna Gavendo

Left to right: Frances Tozman, I think Brian Ehrenworth, ??, and Fern Kirsch

Joanne Orzy with Mrs. Telfer

Mrs. Telfer and Hanna Gavendo

Frances Tozman and me

One of my cake creations

Mr. Telfer

Michelle Shanker and Ron Savlov

Left to right: Harriet Heller, Mrs. Telfer, Lisa Osak, Hanna Gavendo, Frances Tozman

So now another twenty-four years have passed, and Facebook has once again reunited us in cyberspace. Lynn, who has remained a good friend since childhood but now lives in North Carolina, is coming up to visit in a couple of weeks. Once again the idea has formed and we are having another reunion!!

Reunion 2009 is becoming very exciting with almost all of the class contacted and a good number planning on attending.

We are spread out all over the continent now - from Hollywood (Hi Mike!!!) east to North Carolina, north to Ontario, and west to Calgary (Hi Jack!!).

Unfortunately we are still unable to find the three class members with the most popular names. If anyone knows of a Billy Clark who went to Wilmington and ended up playing for the Kitchener Rangers one season - we want to know! And Karen Small, who’s dad worked for Dehaviland, and lived on Waterloo before moving out of the area - we want you too! And last but defnitely not least, Maxine Gilman who also moved out of the area.

Otherwise looking forward to seeing everyone at Reunion 2009. If you need the words to “The Pigeons in the Market Square” or “Grasshopper Green” - let me know, I’ve found them online

I also managed to find two of Mrs. Telfer’s sons. One unfortunately, Jay, died just about a month ago. He had apparently written about our reunion in a blog online and we were trying to find him to invite him to the reunion since his parents are no longer with us. I believe another son, Ian, is CEO for Goldcorp, Inc. and a woman who has two corgis from me, and is involved in the same charity as he is, has given me information to try and contact him.

It looks like Chris has decided that I’m not quite ready to do without him. Today I went shopping with a dragonfly. For anyone who is a new reader to the blog you should read the posts here and here and here to underestand the significance.

Once again the gardens have been stripped of the excess growth, and unfortunately a large number of the perennials that had not yet identified themselves clearly. So I had to go shopping to buy replacements, and some annuals to add some colour to the garden.

I went to the Walmart garden centre down in Orangeville, and as I was looking at a plant trying to decide if I wanted it - a small dragonfly landed on it and looked right at me. It only lighted for a second and then hovered over to a slightly healthier pot of the same plant. So I picked it up instead.

This happened during my entire shopping trip. This dragonfly stayed with me, hovering from plant to plant drawing my attention to a few I hadn’t even considered.

I think I have a screw that is working itself loose, but these are Chris’ (or the dragonfly’s) choices for the garden this year

This is my second Dragonfly encounter this week. On Tuesday I had to go down to Toronto for a job interview. Having to drive in Toronto traffic, as well as getting stuck in a construction zone, made me a little rattled, since instead of having 45 minutes till my interview I was down to 10 and I still needed to park and figure out where the offices were. I finally found a parking spot, and a dragonfly landed on my windshield. It hovered up and down a few times, and when I got out of the truck, it came within 3 inches of my face - and then flew off.

If it was meant to calm me, it did. If it was a dragonfly version of a goodluck kiss, it worked. More next week.

TEMPERATURE AT 10:30 A.M

Today promises to be another brutally hot day outside. At 10:30 it was already 92 degrees, so the dogs are staying in the house even though their new kennel runs are finished.

Below are three pictures of where the kennel is at. I still need to get the doors finished and the interior in shape for the dogs to be in there during the day.

There are now 4 runs - 2 that are 10×10 and 2 that are 8×8. All of the runs will have a door to go into a separate interior pen in the building.

Between the two 10×10 runs is a 4 foot high wall. In this way none of the occupants of the runs can see the occupants of any other run. That should hopefully prevent the Fun Police (aka Rocky) from engaging in any prolonged barking because someone else is playing in which she isn’t included.

The remaining area is one huge gravel play area where puppies can play, or the big guy can be loose in.

Along with the kennel - the gardens are being whipped into shape in the front. The problem is that every year a pile of the prior years perennials get pulled out This is getting to be expensive!

The grass in the rear is still being left for the horses. Here is Manitou, first just after the vet and now two weeks past his dental work. The poor old guy was looking very rough - but from the second picture you can see that he is starting to get some shine back into his coat and some more weight on his bones. Hopefully another few weeks and he’ll be back to himself fully again. This winter I am going to have no choice but to find somewhere to board them….it is impossible to find a reliable person to look after them while I am at work.

Here are three beautiful views that I shot this weekend.

First, here is Dolly free-stacked in the sunshine at the Monarch Kennel Club show. I so hope that she holds onto that coat for at least another two months!! I don’t want to be showing her in her underwear at Western Reserve again.

These two shots were taken at the same place facing in different directions. When I say that I live at the highest point of Ontario it means everything is downhill from here. I was on my way to pick up Dolly from Colin and noticed this view and had to capture it. This is going down the escarpment to the east.

I’ll need to try and remember to take my binoculars next time. I think the line of white on the right side is hangars at Base Borden but I’m not sure.

This is the view from the same spot looking south.

This is God’s country.

It’s another one of those very accurate horoscope days. In fact, somewhere along this week, I convinced myself it was a day later than it actually was.

Yesterday, I emailed Penni to wish her a happy birthday. That would have been fine, except her birthday is today!

And then there is the job interview scenario. I had someone who wanted to meet with me Thursday. Taking the bull by the horns, I contacted a recruiter yesterday who had another posting that interested me and said I was coming into Toronto for a meeting, would it be possible to get together? Their offices happened to be on the north-east and south-east corners of Adelaide and Yonge. He arranged that I would come to see him early enough to leave plenty of time for an interview and time to get to my second appointment.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Had a good interview with the first person, except the job he wanted to present me for is the same one another company is also presenting me for, but at least he has met me and has a good feel for who I am and what makes me tick.

So I go across the road for the second interview. The person isn’t in the office today. The receptionist says it’s very unlike him to book an appointment and then not be in the office. Not to worry, they’ll have me meet with one of his associates. The associate has to call him to find where he has my resume.

As we’re walking down the hall to an interview room, she tells me that he said he would meet me on Thursday. I said ,”Yes, today is Thursday”. “No”, she says, “it’s Wednesday”.

Talk about feeling a centimetre tall!!!

I had both these appointments in my calendar in Outlook and my Blackberry for Thursday. Except that wasn’t today

Thankfully, we had a good laugh about it. I had purposely shown up 15 minutes early for my interview, but didn’t realize I was 24 hours and 15 minutes early. Not working really causes you to lose track of time!

The only good thing I can say about it is, I have an extra day to work on the house this week, and I don’t have to bath Dolly till tomorrow night

As the horoscope says, “You can talk yourself into nearly anything today, but that doesn’t make it true!”

The first outdoor show of the year presented lots of opportunity for some nice pictures of Dolly. The only Group win this weekend was a group 4th under Thomas Alexander.

Much stuff going on today! An interview, a load of tasks completed, a not so happy vet visit, and playing with a new toy!

So for my interview this morning I decided I would wear my nice new grey suit. You know, the one I bought for the Nationals, that ended up staying home in a garment bag hanging on the cupboard door?

Nothing like losing 20 lbs and having the suit fall off before you even get to wear it ONCE!! The waist now drops 6 inches from where it was when I bought it….that means the legs are 6″ longer. Hmmm…rolled up suit pants are not in style last time I looked. So Shelley had to attempt to baste up a hem on the pants. Oh boy…..

Well it wasn’t a horrible job, but I think I’ll take the suit into Frank the Tailor and have him redo it, together with taking in the pants!

The interview went fairly well, but of course one never knows! Another one on Monday.

Then I came home and had to bring in the horses to wait for the vet. Manitou is in very sorry shape despite all the food I’ve been throwing at him, so I figured he was in need of worming and having his teeth floated again. Nero isn’t in tip top shape either. I was beginning to wonder if something was severely wrong with the quality of the hay I had.

Well both of them had very sharp edges on their teeth which were impeding their grinding ability, plus they each had a tooth at a funny angle that needed to come out. For those of you who don’t know - horses teeth grow all their lives, and the shape of the tooth and the angles change, which is why up to about 12 you can pretty accurately tell the age of a horse by its teeth. At 31, Manitou is long past that, and Jim told me his teeth are pretty much useless now, so I am going to have to soak alfalfa cubes and beet pulp for him and feed him separately from Nero so he gets to actually eat it. It also means I’m going to seriously need to look at boarding the horses this winter so they don’t lose condition again, being in a more heated barn. Hopefully Manitou will pull out of this - but right now he looks like an SPCA case.

Then, after Jim left I took some more pictures for Penni. Before I lost my job I had ordered myself a new lens for my DSLR, so it got a tryout today.

First here is a shot of Chase playing Peekaboo behind one of the uprights for the new fence (don’t get me started on that subject!!) This was taken off the back deck over 100′ away! I’m happy with the clarity!

Anyone remember my little wolfhound puppy? Well he’s now a BIG wolfhound puppy….puppy being the key word here! He’s lovable, sweet, and klutzy! And he is convinced that he is a corgi. The problem being that, as you can see, NOTHING is out of his reach! He grabs things off the counter or the grooming table on his way out the door and then its Catch Me if You Can!

Today for the first time this year I actually noticed the scent of the lilacs They are my favourite flowers, not necessarily this colour - but the darker purples, and cranberry coloured ones, and my one at the front which has dark purple flowers with white edges.

And here is a smile for you: (you’ll need to blow this up to look at it), I found this while trying to look up some other information on line. You want to read about the second “Marriage” - Cooper-Martin.

Okay, did you read it? You know what everyone was wearing? Even the flower girl? You can picture it in your mind?

And here is an actual photo of the event from my photo album! It is funny what you can find online these days!